Here is another one that I’ve been practicing for several months now. We all have sleepless moments now and then. Based on my experience, this is a great tool to calm down your mind and depart to the dreamland peacefully.

I call it “the day revision”.

When you are already in bed, rewind the whole day in your head as if you you were rewinding a videotape at slow speed.

It is important to be as detailed as possible. Starting from lying in bed, making the bed, taking a shower, making a plan for tomorrow – and so on backwards until you get to the moment of waking up in the morning.

Actually, this is a type of meditation. Its effect – at least for me – is two-fold.

First, it trains you concentration. You will notice that if you try to be diligent at reviewing your day, your thoughts will keep slipping away. It is important to realize those moments and force yourself gently back to the exercise,

And second, because it is quite intense when done properly, day revision brings more fatigue and thus makes you fall asleep faster.

Very simple and effective. And that’s how it should be.

Do you have your favorite tricks for a good deep sleep? Feel free to share and discuss them here.

A flexible mind is a generator of new ideas, ideas “out of the box”, fresh perspectives on the same things. Ultimately, it’s a prerequisite for creativity. Needles to say, it is useful in the whole spectrum of our lives, from personal relationships to career and business.

Here is a simple exercise to train flexibility of your mind. It can be done any time and anywhere. For example, while commuting to work.

Take a look at any object in front of view. It can be literally anything – from a pen sticking out of someone’s pocket to a handrail in a bus. It is important to to choose an object as quickly as possible to avoid considerations like “will this one be easy or not?”. The best is to stick with the first thing that catches your eye.

Now come up with 10 ways to use that object.

At first it may be seem quite hard. You would normally find around 3 ways how to use something. But 10? The task here is to keep searching until you come up with one idea after another till you get a list of ten.

For example, I can see a table lamp right now on my left. I can use this lamp to:

– light up my workspace

– put the headphone wire around it

– add a fresh color to my table

– stretch my fingers by holding onto the lamp

– stick a memo on it

– decorate my working area

– use it as a hanger for anything that can be hanged

– warm up my hands if it’s cold in the room

– use it as a stand for small souvenirs

– protect myself against a burglar breaking into the flat

It took me around ten minutes to come up with the items above. As already mentioned, the idea is to keep on seeking solutions until you get them. Not only does this teach you to have a fresh look at familiar things, but also improves concentration.

Oh, by the way, there is one category of people who don’t need any kind of mental flexibility training to retain a fresh look on things.

I mean children of course. Children are the only ones who always find something new in the same stuff. As a rule, such ability is lost with aging.

That’s it about the exercise. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. So have fun :).

When I was 15 years old and attended the 9th grade in high school, I participated in the municipal English language contest. These kind of school contests, or ‘Olympiads’ as they are called, are very popular throughout the post-soviet territory, and are held in nearly every subject.

As part of preparation for the contest my English teacher – a great person and a great pedagogue – suggested that I should learn by heart the poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling. I remember how my teacher was excited about the poem. Even more excited was she when reciting it to me.

I also remember being puzzled. By that time my only image of Kipling was that of the author of ‘Maugli’. I simply could not understand how a poem would be useful during the English language contest. However, as I started reading and learning the poem itself, I got more and more hooked. Moreover, somehow I was dead sure I could make use of it during the contest.

The last exercise of the contest, as it was announced beforehand, was a free discussion on a random topic. I don’t remember now what that topic was. I do remember though that I could nicely connect it with the Poem recited passionately in front of the jury.

I won that contest and became “number one” in town among twenty schools represented.

As time passed by, I turned back to the poem over and over again. This seems to be one of those few pieces that bring inspiration literally forever. Today, its lines resonate even more vividly inside of me when when back in my teens.

If I were asked to leave the only literary piece of work on Earth, I would select If without a doubt.